Roadmapping: Comparing cases in China and Germany

Roadmapping in China and in Germany has different connotations, contexts, meanings and cultural backgrounds. In order to understand what is meant by roadmaps — and not to confuse roadmaps with foresight in general — a comparative analysis was jointly performed by the Beijing Research Centre for Science of Science (BRCSS) under the Beijing Academy of Science and Technology and the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI). This joint project investigated several cases according to a set of criteria and compared the content. The aim of the project was mutual learning and the results revealed that the differences can be found on different levels like the understanding of the terminology (not only language), cultural understandings, the background of the innovation system and contexts of the roadmaps and the understanding of the objectives. The way the process is performed differed significantly whereas the differences in the processes themselves, the number of participants or the topic fields were rather similar. In the paper, some of the differences are discussed in context and lessons learned are explained.